Category Archives: Comics

Those of you who know me know that I’m not much of a music buff. Until university I hadn’t listened to much outside of videogame soundtracks & remixes and a couple of Rammstein tracks that were attached to some Anime music videos. Thankfully this has been changing recently and I’ve been listening to a lot more music in general, especially the more nerdy stuff, because it’s actually pretty good. The artist that proves this beyond all others is a man called Adam WarRock.

Adam WarRock is a Korean-American comic book rapper who used to be a lawyer until he realised that he hated his day job and took up rapping fulltime. He’s pretty much the only source for comic book themed music, aside from a few one-off tracks which I’ll mention in the links later. He’s only been making music professionally for a couple of years, but he’s put together quite the tracklist for such a short period of time. Almost all of his work is free too, apart from a couple of albums and special remixes of some of his songs, and even those can be streamed for free. Speaking of which, let’s talk about the music.

Sinister Six (Spider-Man)The first one of his songs that I listened to was a Spider-Man track focused on the Sinister Six. This is a 10 minute long monster of a track that tells the tale of the original members of the Sinister Six and their coming together to defeat Spider-Man once and for all. It’s told from the perspective of the villains themselves and changes tune as new villain steps up to try to best Spider-Man. The tone changes quite frequently too, alternating between a darker, more violent take on the Spider-Man universe and becoming almost slapstick. I think this is still probably my favourite song and I’ve already listened to it many more times than I could count.

Top Wobble (Inception)
A very catchy song that recaps the entire Inception movie. If you haven’t seen Inception then I’d go watch that first because spoilers abound here. I tend to find myself humming the chorus for a good while after every time I listen to this.

I believe in Harvey Dent (The Dark Knight)
I think it’s safe to say that most of us like Batman, or the Dark Knight movie at least. This track is about Harvey Dent, the up and coming attorney who, after suffering a disfiguring injury, becomes the villain Two-Face.

Smashed Gordon (Flash Gordon)
Like the Inception track earlier, this one follows the plot of three Flash Gordon movie, with a difference. Rather than being a regular sports jock, Flash is instead a drunken frat boy. It’s a bizarre take and I’m not sure write what to make on it, but you can’t deny the quality of everything else about this.

I Gotta Believe! (Scott Pilgrim)
This one was released not too long after Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour, the last in the series, was announced and recaps the rest of the series to prep for the release. As with his other recaps spoilers abound, and you probably won’t find it too interesting if you’ve never read the comics. If that’s the case though, then you have more pressing matters, like reading the comics. It managed to earn a mention from Bryan O’Malley, mainly because it’s so damned good.

Browncoats Mixtape (Firefly)
Aside from the one-off tracks, Adam WarRock also makes the occasional album. All but 2 of these have been released for free, and the latest one is this Firefly mixtape. It’s an interesting mash up of rap and the slight western tang of the original series, but it works really well. It manages to maintain the balance of the two styles well and doesn’t drift into either style too much, where it either be a straight rip or too different to recognise. Definitely worth taking your time to listen to.

Other Links:

There haven’t been many other comic related songs, but here’s a few that have cropped up now and again.

Today I’m going to talk about my current favourite podcast/community. It’s simply called Nerdy show and it’s a 2-3 hour weekly (occasionally more frequently) podcast series that, as the name implies, covers a number of very nerdy/geeky topics including video games, comics, webcomics, Minecraft and music, especially of the Nerdcore variety. They cover several different topics in each episode, usually themed around a central topic such as a recent video game, movie or the like. These are interspersed with some pretty awesome music somewhat related to the topic at hand and generally find their way onto my iPod’s playlist before too long. Their podcast has only been running since 2009, but they’ve already interviewed quite a few big people in the various industries they cover. This includes people such as the legendary Rob Paulsen, who’s voiced at least one character in every cartoon you’ve ever loved. Steve Blum of the supremely gravely voice who’s voiced such well-loved characters as Spike Spiegal of Cowboy Bebop. Weird Al Yankovic, probably the best known name in parody music. Mark Waid, writer of a number of well-known comics including an excellent run on “The Flash” and currently doing pretty damn well with Irredeemable over at Boom studios. And many, many music artists, way too many to list here, but it includes names such as The Protomen, FreezePop, Brentalfloss and Adam Warrock. Not only this, but they also run the yearly Nerdapalooza festival, the place to be for anyone who’s anyone in the nerdy music biz.

The thing about Nerdy Show isn’t just the podcast and the guys and girls who produce it. It’s about the community. The sort of community who frequently create works of truly insane magnitude upon their Minecraft server. These include things such as a 1/4 scale of the Battlestar Galactica, featuring a choose your own adventure story to decide whether you’re really a human or a frakking toaster. The SG-1 facility from the Stargate SG-1 TV show with a working Stargate that takes you to straight to Abydos. A recreation of the Serenity from Firefly with all the rooms shown within the show and about a billion different sprites and monuments from various other shows. There’s even a Pompeii villa in there.

But back to the podcast. One of the many things they do includes a monthly Dungeons and Dragons adventure, titled “Dungeons and Doritos”. They tell the tale of the misadventures of a group of 4 adventures. Vimak, a hulking Goliath weilder of natural magic with a remarkably Russian accent and a wolf-bear companion. Jamela, a Dragonborn cleric with a habit of externally monologuing her actions. Jen’Ifir, a Tiefling Warlock seeking ultimate power and doesn’t mind sacrificing her fellow companions to get it. And finally there’s Chair, a Dwarf who used to be a chair until a wizard got involved. I’m not sure anything I could say could satisfactorily explain Chair, he really needs to be experienced. Later they’re joined by Bartholomew, a dashing swashbuckler and rogue and Lefty, a former pirate queen. Their adventures make up some of the greatest RPG adventures I’ve ever listened to, readily rivalling the Penny Arcade/PvP ones in my opinion. They recently started a new set of adventures from episode 11, so that’s a good jumping off point if you don’t fancy starting right from the beginning.

To sum it up, Nerdy Show is pretty freaking awesome. I’m bit saying everything they produce is brilliant, but that’s been the case so far. If you’re into anything Nerdy whatsoever you really owe it yourself to listen to it.